Friday, March 16, 2007

Sigh, Yawn.

Saigon! The city so nice, they named it twice. Ho Chi Minh City, as labeled only by public officials and postmen, is honking, sprawling, madness of a town. Unfortunately, we've been through more than a few of those already this trip and they all tend to blend together after a month of traveling. We're tired. Tired of trudging around town, fending off touts, tired of breathing dust and exhaust, tired of dodging scooters left and right. Sorry Saigon, you got the short end of the stick. I'm sure if we had come here first, all of your history and culture would have been novel.

Walking around last night, a few things stood out. Gosh, everything is double the price from last week and man, there are a lot of hookers. I don't know if thinking 'man, there are a lot of hookers' is something that they can reprint on their tourist brochure, but it probably isn't an aspect to hang your hat on. In all honesty, it could have been my misunderstanding of how friendly the heavily made-up and scantily-clad young women sitting outside of bar / discos were acting. Take Philly, the city of 'brotherly love'... perhaps first-timers there think that it is a gay mecca. One just gets the sense that the integration / exploitation of middle aged American men with the Vietnamese is much more ingrained here. I didn't get the same vibe from Hanoi. There are many bars by the big hotels that look straight from outta the movies, with bad lighting and young women keeping shop, waiting to console their sullen G.I.s, just back from tour and missing their girls back home. Think Paris Hilton, as opposed to Hanoi Hilton. Hanoi had a sense of class that Saigon lacks. Saigon seems to be more brazen, aggressive, sluttier.

There are no young children anywhere to be found in Saigon this week, for fear that Angelina Jolie is going to come and kidnap them. It is like when King Herod wreaking havoc, killing young children all across the land in attempts to vanquish Jesus. We've found that in every third-world country we've visited. Mitsubishi even has a brand of people mover named the Jolie (pictured), with enough cargo space to store a half-dozen orphans. Every mother, every young child fears abduction by Angelina Jolie. They usually run screaming at the sight of a brunette American woman (like Peggy) approaching them on the street. One woman did a total double take when standing next to us on the corner. Maybe we will see Angelina and B-rad on the flight home tonight... how much do you think we could get for a first-born Canadian / American baby?

Today also marks the 39th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, which happened up the coast near the town of Hoi An, where we just were. As such, this afternoon we visited the American War Crimes museum, recently renamed the more approachable War Renimants Museum. It was a very humble but powerful chronology of the effects of all the bombing, battles, chemicals and destruction. Much was made of the international protesting (at the time) against U.S. military action here. It was certainly worth a look around and very appropriate given the date as well as current events.

posted by ncawthon at 7:59 PM

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Text Message

In both Vietnam and Cambodia, there have been many a vendor selling bootleg literature in the street and at storefronts. These books are sometimes absurdly poor replicas of the originals, essentially photocopied contents with a glossy cover. They look like the readers that we used to use in college, the ones that were copied from my roomate's friends, who copied theirs from someone in their glee club, who copied theirs from their pot dealer. Yet, for $4 a piece, the price is certainly right. Often there are many translations available, for the bevvy of languages that come through these countries are those of the foriegners. What is more interesting, however, is the nature of these books. Yes, you've got the requisite travel bibles of the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, both instructing people to places neither rough nor certainly not lonely (to paraphrase Alex Garland).

The majority of the books being offered deal with recollection of recent conflicts of the 1970s, both internally and domestically. These are often done in the first person, a more telling narrative of the population themselves. Peggy and I were lucky enough to have read a few of the essential texts before leaving Sydney, but have picked up several more titles each since being here in Asia. The bottoms of our backpacks are starting to become mobile book depositories. I wonder if this relaxation on copyright might be a benefit to a society such as U.S. or Australia? Although the localized languages are not available in the case of Cambodia or Vietnam, having definitive historical texts publically recognizable and reasonably aquirable must be a positive thing. These books are generally (and rightfully, in my opinon) biased towards the viewpoint that atrocities of the past have occured. None reveal the hawkish view, nor extoll virtues of the new (or disposed of) regimes. That's not what tourists want to read.

So, a proposed loophole in copyrights for books are important for a nation to understand its' history and heritage If street vendors around places like Pier 39 sold bootleg copies of say, Red Badge of Courage, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Grapes of Wrath, would this not raise awareness of these book's importance locally as well as providing outsiders a glimpse of American history? It certainly would paint a more accurate and poignant picture than the exposure the U.S. gets from what Hollywood movies portray. Further, rather than selling imitation aboriginal t-shirts and digeridoos (made in China) by the Opera House, wouldn't bootleg copies of A Fatal Shore give more of definition of what Australia has been built on. The governments could classify these books as 'National Historic Texts' and suppliment the publishers with lost revenue from the illicit copies.

Counterpoint being that having street vendors sell poor replicas of literature alongside pirated DVDs of Rocky Balboa and Borat might cheapen their message by association alone. Interestingly, in Thailand there was plenty of pirated DVDs, but no books, as the Kingdom of Smiles went through the 70s relatively unscathed and everybody is hunky dory with situation under the current monarch.

posted by ncawthon at 1:44 PM

Monday, March 12, 2007

Sweat. Shopping.

Hoi An! Old town, tiny streets, ancient charm. Warm climate. A tiny town containing over 200 tailor shops. A long time ago, Hoi An was a silk trade port into and out of China. Over the years, the town has become known worldwide in their knack for producing quality clothing out of such traditional fabrics as silk, rayon and polyester. Nearly every storefront has dresses, shoes and suits, sometimes displaying fashions that are woefully out of date. Heavy overcoats that would never be able to be worn in such tropical climates are apparently very popular.

Heading into the stores, two or three women follow you around asking what you're looking for. Clumsy shoppers such as us, really aren't sure and usually want to see a catalogue. You then spend fifteen or twenty minutes piling through binders, looking at waif models on the Milan runways wearing the most god awful heroin-chic outfits, completely impractical or wearable anyplace save certain sections of Fresno. I've posted a picture of the outfit Peggy has had made for her first week back at work.

We've gotten the sense that there is a pool of tailors that are for contract hire from the storefronts. When a buyer is ready to commit to being measured, the sales lady gets on the horn and five minutes later a guy arrives by motor scooter to measure you up. Just as quickly as he arrives, said measure man hops on his scooter and rides off into the night. Same thing with the shoes. A phone call is made, the appropriate freelancer smelling of cigarettes arrives a short time later, traces your foot and measures your arches and zips off with the sample of cloth or shoe style. One or two days later, you show up for an adjustment session.

There are also the single-family tailors that do the work in the kitchen or living room of their house, with the storefront being curbside. These are a bit more hit-and-miss, in that you're not sure whether the family is up to par, or that they have the equipment / textiles able to complete the task. Yet, one feels better knowing that they had dealt directly with the producer, as opposed to the random measure men going off to parts unknown.

At the adjustment session, it is an extremely thorough process. At one point in getting a suit made, I had five people tugging and pinching at me, all muttering comments about how it all was hanging. You feel like a super model, full of pins and instructed by onlookers. At the larger places, the adjustments are made upstairs, as the sales ladies get on a microphone / PA system and call for one of the eight-year olds with bleeding fingers to make a nip here or a tuck there on a pant leg or dress hem. Truthfully, we've watched as a shift change has taken place from the 'attic of despair', only to see happy teenagers laughing and joking on their way out. No bleeding fingers to be found.

Tomorrow we're taking a break from our Capitalistic Vanity to explore the My Son sanctuary by boat tour. We'll be hiking around ancient ruins and seeing decrepit temples. Seems like every couple of days, we've been hiking around ancient ruins and seeing decrepit temples. Better than sitting in traffic and seeing decrepit freeways.

posted by ncawthon at 10:31 PM

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Hue. Ho. Let's Go!

We're about to head South from Hue, past Da Nang and onto Hoi An. Our brief but enjoyable time in Hue has been very different from Hanoi. Hue has a very rich history, being the former capital of Vietnam and home to the emperors and dynastic rulers of the land before the Communists took power. Hue was also the site of the Tet Offensive, forty years ago last month. When the VC held the city for 25 days, General Westmoreland bombed the crap out of the place, barely making a dent in the ancient stone temples and citadels that have stood for centuries before.

We spent the day going around to the temples and ancient palaces, even adjourning some costumes and posing for cheesy pictures as the terrorsome husband and wife emporer / empress from the 15th century. We ruled the land with an iron fist. We visited a Buddhist pagoda, still in operation today. Many monks and intellectuals were killed when the VC held the city, causing some buddhists to set fire to themselves in protest.

That afternoon, we spent $1 to catch the Huda Hue versus Da Nang soccer match at the local stadium. I tell you, Huda Hue is going all the way this year. Huda, the team sponsor is a mishmash of the words Hue and Da, or Denmark. Brewed in the Danish style, the beer is particularly hoppy (in my taste) and not my favorite. The soccer team isn't much better, drawing Da Nang to a 0-0 tie. The best part of the game were the men's urinals, which the wall connecting two sections of the stands. I didn't get to find out where the women's restroom was, could have been the same wall.

posted by ncawthon at 1:20 PM